Martin Luther King Jr and the Deep South

Martin Luther King Jr, Civil Rights Leader and Baptist Priest. Born in Atlanta, GA. Why was Birmingham, AL, significant for the entire civil rights movement. From http://www.birmingham.org : The year was 1963, and as the world watched, events in Birmingham sparked an unstoppable surge toward equal rights for people of all races. As Birmingham enters 2013, the city will mark the 50th anniversary of pivotal events of 1963 in America’s Civil Rights Move

Birmingham, AL, summer 1997. My travel to Birmingham. To visit my son who just completed his MSc.AerospaceEng at University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa., AL. [ http://www.ua.edu/ ] . I then spent a week in Birmingham, with a short visit of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame. As a former Jazz aficionado. And visit the wonderful Birmingham Botanical Gardens.

Before taking off on a week-long trip to the Gulf Coast – Mississippi, Louisiana, Gulf Coast. Stopping New Orleans, the Bayous, and Biloxi, MS. Then visiting the USS Alabama, Battle Ship (BB-60), commissioned in 1942 and now resting at Battleship Park on Mobile Bay, Mobile AL.

Birmingham is significant for the start of the civil rights movement, also because of Dr. Martin Luther Jr’s time in the Birmingham Jail and his famous letter:

Birmingham AL is also known as the city of steel. And its huge statue of the MAN OF STEEL – the Vulcan Statue. [ WIKIPEDIA: …Vulcan statue is the largest cast iron statue in the world, and is the city symbol of Birmingham, Alabama, reflecting its roots in the iron and steel industry. The 56-foot (17 m) tall statue depicts the Roman godVulcan, god of the fire and forge. It was created as Birmingham’s entry for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (1904 World’s Fair) in St. Louis, Missouri. It is the seventh-tallest free-standing statue in the United States. ]

But more significant for the Civil Rights Movement was the march to Washington DC and Martin Luther King Jr’s famous speech 28 August 1963.: “I have a dream. That one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal’”. (include women)

NOTE. The FBI – to target King specifically as a major enemy of the United States.[34] Two days after King delivered “I Have a Dream”, Agent William C. Sullivan, the head of COINTELPRO, wrote a memo about King’s